Friday, November 23, 2007

I offer thoughts that may help you give thanks for some of the things that did and didn’t happen as the injustices of the Duke Hoax played out:

Duke President Richard Brodhead did say “the facts kept changing,” but David Evans cleared things up for scientists and philosophers: “Facts don’t change.”

N&O columnist Ruth Sheehan did write those terrible columns attacking the players and Coach Pressler, but at least she wasn’t then named a Duke visiting professor with joint appointments in the Departments of Cultural Anthropology and Women’s Studies and the School of Law.

N&O columnist Barry Saunders did write that he’d go to Durham City Hall and slap officials if they gave the three innocent men indicted during the Hoax more than a fish sandwich and a bus ticket out of town, but at least Gov. Easley didn’t appoint him DA.

The Chronicle’s editorial board declared Brodhead “must” remain Duke’s president, but at least it didn’t add: “and whatever they did was bad enough.”

And after he wrote a letter Provost Lange rightly called “a form of prejudice,” the bilious bigot Houston Baker did depart Duke after receiving what he termed an “unrefusable” offer from Vanderbilt University. (Thanks, Vandy.)